And so it begins,,,,,, 5-speed Duster swap!

That has almost no strength at all. The bending direction from the left to right of the car is basically nothing. I can bend 1/4" bar by hand without heating it. You need a 3D shape.
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This is very stuff. It's made of similar materials but it controls flex and bending in both directions. Shouldn't be terribly hard to do it right. It's especially important since that's the crossmember the torsion bars are connected to.

The lower crossmember should be strong also, but I wouldn't rely on just that.

Been 6 years with the setup on my car but the car was stiff other than the edges of the floors as soon as that upper crossmember was in.
A question to you if you don't mind. When you cut the original floor tunnel cross member out, did you notice any undue flexing of anything? In other words, when I get ready to do mine, would it be recommended to maybe weld in some braces?